ABSTRACT
We come now to the question of assortment. Its importance has already been emphasized. It was included among the policy parameters proposed by the Danish Institute and we touched on its importance to Lazarus, the dominant shop, and Oxford Street, the dominant shopping centre. We come back now to the individual distributor. Most regard their stock as the foundation of their business. In Daniel Defoe's language: ‘'tis the having a shop well filled with goods, having good choice to sell, and selling reasonable, these are the things that bring a trade, and the trade thus brought will stand by you, and last’. We have already, in the last chapter, discussed ‘selling reasonable’—the price parameter. The desirability of having a shop well filled with goods scarcely needs emphasis. The wide assortment is interesting to a customer, the impression of abundance is pleasing, and the chance of providing what is wanted in each individual transaction is greater.
